“Maybe he can play dead,” says the heavyset major. He rips the Luger from Wünsche’s teeth and wipes the spit off it on the front of his trousers. With a theatrically exaggerated gesture he pulls a long magazine from one of the pockets of his tunic and holds both pistol and magazine up like a magician presenting rabbit and hat before performing his famous trick. He replaces the pistol’s empty magazine with the loaded one and then pulls back the striker to feed a bullet into the chamber. “Ah, beautiful German engineering!” he exclaims with a wink directed at Wünsche who is still kneeling at his feet. The other men chuckle. They fall silent when the major holds the pistol to Wünsche’s head, and they hold their breath and Wünsche does too looking down the end of the barrel and it all becomes very quiet, like that moment in the cinema when the lights go out. Despite all the years of service it’s still frightening, the sight of that tiny black hole and knowing death was just a pull of the trigger away. Sometimes it’s easier to be a dog than man. He bares his teeth and snarls. The major laughs, deep and jolly. “Well I’m afraid that is a trick he can do only once and wouldn’t that be a waste?” The men exchange murmurs of approval. “But there is one other trick he’s very good at, very good indeed. And I didn’t even need to teach him!” He lowers the barrel of the gun to Wünsche’s lips. “Suck it.”
Tag: POW
Crossing the T’s
The doctor skims the report with a disinterest that’s tempered only by his irritation at having to deal with such nonsense in the first place. By the time the guards lead the inmate into the room his mind is already almost completely made up.
There’s been trouble from this Joachim Peiper previously – fanciful accusations of mistreatment of him or his men. Cynical gambits to save their own skin or merely petulant efforts to waste everyone’s time, taking advantage of the better nature of their victors. It is, in his opinion, an unfortunate and rather senseless notion that they have any responsibility towards these people. Such compassionate considerations are alien to the nature of the German people and even if they were not, they surely have forfeited them now entirely as a whole let alone in the case of such specific smirking little war criminals.
The issue at hand this time is particularly distasteful and the fact that Peiper is standing before him at the moment with his back straight and his head upright and his thin lips pressed firmly together, aloof and composed, only confirms his original verdict. If these allegations were true there would naturally be some sort of stamp of shame upon him. He does not believe such things don’t leave an obvious change in any real man and even if he does perhaps detect, peering from the report to Peiper and back again, a slight quiver in the jaw behind that carefully controlled aspect, well then that’s simply evidence of the nervousness of a liar worried he’ll be caught in his falsehood.
“Do you need him uncuffed, sir?” asks one of the guards.
He shakes his head. “Not at the moment. Perhaps presently.”
He rises from his stool, approaches Peiper and says in slow, loud English. “Do you understand why you are here?”
It garners no response, just the divot of a frown in the middle of Peiper’s brow. The doctor sighs. He turns and stabs the piece of paper on his desk and begrudgingly switches to German if only to forestall any complaints about the fact later.
He explains that an examination is necessary in order for him to supply an opinion on the allegations Peiper has made concerning certain misconduct directed toward his person. He thinks he notices a twitch this time. The crease between Peiper’s eyebrows deepens.
“I’d appreciate your assistance,” the doctor says. Not looking at Peiper any more. Addressing the men flanking him on either side.
He instructs them how he wants Peiper stripped from the waist down. No need to untie him after all. Peiper starts back as the button of his trousers is snapped open, tries to take over the operation himself, clumsily, hands bound in front of him but a rough grip on the back of his neck and another at his wrists puts paid to that quickly. He raises his chin as if it were the prow of a boat determined to bear on through the inevitable and doesn’t struggle any more. Still, that first instinctual, human response to protect his dignity might also be termed: signs of an ‘uncooperative nature’ and those are the two words the doctor jots down on his notepad as Peiper raises a foot for his sock to be removed, before knocking his pen against the examination table.
“Up on here,” he says. “On his back I think.”
The guards manhandle Peiper up onto the cold, steel surface. The doctor strolls to the door and swings it open so it bangs back against his hinges and a rush of air from the corridor rustles the flimsy paper curtain hanging next to, though not yet drawn around, the examination table. Peiper makes a startled noise of protest and the doctor glances over his shoulder to see him struggling to hunch over himself, as if he were entitled to any sort of privacy.
“Will you hold him down,” he says, casting his eyes heavenward at the display.
The guards force Peiper’s shoulders back down to the flat of the table. The doctor shakes his head and reminds himself to underline his previous note. He whistles down the corridor to catch the attention of the nurse sipping coffee at her desk.
“Sarah, can you fetch Whitford for me, please?”
He leaves the door propped open and returns the table. Peiper’s chest is rising and falling in a conspicuously slow and deep manner, obviously a conscious effort on his part. The doctor cranes his head to check under the table and hums a thoughtful note.
“We don’t have time for difficulties, let’s have him secured.”
He shows the guards the curved hook at the underside of the head of the table, a small loop of metal meant for securing and tidying IV lines when patients are in transit. Tugging the chain of Peiper’s cuffs over it draws his arms above his head, impossible to dislodge without assistance. As the chain pulls tight Peiper’s hands clench into fists but the rest of his body is still lying docile enough on the table.
“What’s the problem?”
His colleague, Whitford, joining him now as they both look down, considering Peiper.
The doctor shares a long suffering look with his peer.
“He says that he’s been abused by some of the staff.”
He taps the inside of Peiper’s leg with his pen, just above his knee.
“Forced anal penetration,” he continues.
There’s a rather long silence. The clock on the wall makes the loud progress of a minute at least. The doctor observes the blotchy red colour that flushes over Peiper’s skin and feels satisfied that at least now perhaps their criminal is feeling some shame. Whitford snorts and he waves his hand in the air.
“I know, I know, but procedure…”
He instructs the guards how to position Peiper’s legs properly, heels pressed up to his buttocks, folding him open. Possibly he notices the tail end of a shared smile between the two men grasping Peiper’s ankles and the thought occurs to him that there were no names in the report indicating who exactly the inmate had accused.
“I say,” his colleague interjects on his thoughts. “I hope this isn’t going to become a habit amongst this lot. We’ll have to commandeer a gynie table from the women’s section.”
The doctor snaps on a pair of beige latex gloves and sneezes into the crook of his arm from the little puff of talcum powder that hangs momentarily in the air. Whitford follows suit. They both peer down at the exposed area between Peiper’s legs.
The hairs on the back of Peiper’s thighs are already standing on end and when the doctor touches his fingertip to the rim of his anus the muscles in each leg bunch in resistance.
“Could you get his knees back further,” the doctor instructs the men. “Steady grip if you please.”
There’s a brisk tap of heels from the corridor. He glances over his shoulder through the open door, fingers still on Peiper, to see if it’s one of the nurses and save them the trouble of sending to fetch one later, but it’s only Sarah heading off toward the commissary.
“So what do you think?” Whitford asks.
He turns back. His colleague has helpfully spread Peiper’s buttocks further apart so they have an unimpeded view of the site.
“Hard to say,” he replies. He uses his middle and index finger like a pair of calipers, pressing in on either side of Peiper’s anus, dragging at the rather swollen looking tissue surrounding Peiper’s opening as he widens them; first horizontally and then, with his thumb digging into the perineum, vertically. “I suppose it seems a little inflamed but of course that could merely be signs of a poor prison diet.”
“Or self abuse.” the other doctor offers.
He nods and moves his index finger to the centre of Peiper’s anus, pushing a little to feel out the resistance of the muscle. There’s a hiss from the body below him, a full body flinch, but he notices with approval that the guards have Peiper held well in place.
Whitford goes to a cabinet and rummages around while he gradually, firmly works his dry, rubber finger into Peiper’s anal canal up the first knuckle, twisting back and forth, slowly screwing it inside. There’s not another sound from Peiper but the increase in his breathing rate is obvious from the rapid rise and fall of his breast and his stomach muscles are visibly trembling beneath his shirt with the effort to keep it under control. When he glances further up he sees that the prisoner has his eyes shut and frowns deeply.
“Attention please, inmate,” he snaps, jabbing his finger the rest of the way home. “You’re not here to daydream.”
The pain flashes in naked shock over Peiper’s face for a second as his eyes fly open and then quickly becomes battened down again behind the bite of his teeth into his blanching lower lip. The doctor regards the theatrics of it coolly, it offends him more than a little that this young man thinks he’s going to have any influence on the outcome of things here with such blatant ploys for sympathy. This act of biting one’s lip in particular reminds him of the behaviour of some supercilious schoolboy.
Whitford returns to the examining table with a tray of instruments and sets it on the table beside them.
“You didn’t want this?” he asks, holding up a tube of surgical lubricant.
“It would just confound the assessment. I want to appraise how easily he allows himself to be penetrated.” He works his finger in and out of Peiper as he speaks. “Even without lubrication the muscle tone here does feel rather slack.”
“May I?”
“Of course, in fact…” He takes a step to the side and allows Whitford nearer so that he can push a gloved finger in beside his own. “I’ll hold mine still. Try and stretch his sphincter further apart, how much effort does that seem like?”
Together they’re able to produce a fair gape between their probing fingers. The table quivers a little along with a rasp of metal that tells Peiper’s wrists are jerking against the place they’re hooked but they both ignore the noise for now. The doctor uses his free hand to pluck his penlight from his pocket and shine it down into the space they’ve made.
“So you do think there’s something to this complaint of his?” Whitford asks, inserting a second finger to widen their area of investigation further.
The doctor chuckles. “Now you must think more before you speak sometimes, Whitford. So far I’ve seen nothing that would lead me away from the far more sensible conclusion that this is all indicative of a habitual sodomite.”
“But not from-”
“From regular congress with his superiors far before we picked him up. I think it’s considered well known how rampant that sort of business was with this lot. Another pathology to add to the whole sickening mess. After everything you’ve heard would you really be shocked to learn of any new depravity?”
“Well…no,” Whitford replies. He’s still inspecting the rim of Peiper’s anus as they speak, pinching the angry red flesh between forefinger and thumb as his other fingers remain prying him open. The tip of the rubber glove thins against the pressure of his thumbnail as his palpitations grow more rough.
He gives Peiper’s face a considering look while continuing to pinch him. “I suppose that’s why the pretty ones have so many medals,” he says.
The doctor huffs and shakes his head. “At any rate, we’ll have to be thorough. Hand me the speculum would you?”
His colleague pulls his fingers out of Peiper and fetches the tool. He takes it and as he holds it up, considering the length and width of the long silver blades still clasped together, they catch the light and shine a stripe over Peiper’s eyes making him wince and turn his head to one side.
“Fetch the larger size,” the doctor says.
In this instance he does take the time to give the instrument a rudimentary once over with a finger’s worth of lubrication before setting the tip of the bill at Peiper’s anus. A stifled whine seems to emanate from the general direction of Peiper’s throat and a tremor runs through him. Whether it’s a reaction to the deep cold that inevitably embeds itself in these sorts of heavy steel tools or whether the sore pink rosette of his anus is feeling especially tender by now is hard to tell. The doctor braces his left hand on one of Peiper’s shivering thighs and finds it slick and clammy with sweat, the back of his shirt must be soaked with it.
The process of penetrating Peiper with the instrument is slow and methodical. The doctor does not want to cause any unnecessary damage, but more importantly he has no wish to speed things up regardless. It is a punitive operation as well as a medical one. Not only is it vital to make it clear that making an allegation like Peiper has done is a decision not to be taken lightly, but ideally to produce a less defiant inmate in general. Which really, he thinks, unpleasant as it may be, like any bitter medicine will be the best for Peiper’s health too in the long run.
So he slides the blades deeper into Peiper’s rectum incrementally, millimetre by millilitre, glancing briefly at the spasmodic curling of Peiper’s toes. Gradually, so that Peiper can properly appreciate the physical sensation of having his body manipulated this way – deeply, humiliatingly intimately and beyond his control, at the leisurely disposal of those who wish to view him this way.
When he begins to open it with the same incremental pressure it sounds as though Peiper has been struck by the hiccups. Then it becomes clear the furious bobbing motion of his Adam’s apple in his throat is an attempt to hold back his sobs. The doctor allows himself a small, satisfied smile and squeezes the handle of the speculum tightly open before ratcheting in the screw that will keep it so until he sees fit to remove it.
The opening of his anus has been stretched so wide that its previously puffy, red aperture looks ironed flat and almost bloodless. The doctor shines his light inside again and hums to himself.
“Anything of note?” Whitford asks.
“Still rather inconclusive I’m afraid,” the doctor says, tapping his pen thoughtfully against the instrument keeping Peiper agape. “In my professional opinion there is no convincing evidence to verify this man’s particular….story.”
“Surely even if he had been penetrated recently it’s more likely he was just trading willing favours.”
“Oh you can’t think any of our boys would go in for that,” the doctor says reprovingly. “Besides, it would need to be reported too.”
“Yes, yes, but with all the paperwork redone…” Whitford sighs.
“Ah! Speaking of,” the doctor straightens up and snaps his fingers together. “We need Sally.”
“I know where she’ll be, won’t be a moment.”
While Whitford is gone he apologises to the men holding Peiper for the amount of time all this has been taking and commending them on what an excellent job they are doing. Neither of them seem to be particularly put out about it and one even volunteers that they’re happy to wait exactly as long as he needs, an attitude the doctor can’t help but feel a little national pride in.
Sally looks momentarily startled when she enters the room with her little camera, but she’s an excellent nurse and not much can break her out of her stride. Peiper looks destroyed, sickly wan and then flushing violently crimson. Everyone in the room can hear the tell tale rattle of his handcuffs . The doctor imagines the urge to try and hide oneself in such a situation is almost impossibly strong.
“There’s been an official complaint so we need photographs for the case file,” he explains. “Please make sure you include his face, I’d hate to open ourselves up to further accusations that we merely performed an examination on a separate patient or something equally as ridiculous.”
Sally trots over and begins to peer through the lens of her camera.
“It’s his rectum that is the point of interest,” the doctor interjects. “But you’re a bright girl obviously I don’t really need to point that out.”
Whitford is busying himself with some swabs and a handful of plastic pockets. The doctor raises an eyebrow in query.
“Naturally I agree that our boys wouldn’t go in for that sort of business,” Whitford begins.
“But?”
“But. It can’t hurt to check if he’s clean. In case he has been whoring around. Public safety notice and so on and so forth.”
The doctor waves a hand for him to get on with it and Whitford approaches Peiper from the side while Sally is still busy making sure she’s getting enough light to capture the spread, twitching picture of Peiper’s anus in sufficient clarity. He takes the soft, limp shaft of Peiper’s penis firmly in his hand and pulls back the foreskin. The delicate shade of his glans looks far more pale than the colour on his cheeks at present. The manner in which Whitford pushes the end of the cotton swab down into his urethra is decidedly not so delicate. Ever since Sally entered the room Peiper’s jaw had been clenched so hard the doctor would only have been half surprised to find he’d cracked a tooth, but now he finally gives up a sharp, agonised little cry.
“Tsch, don’t fuss,” Whitford says.
He leaves the swab inside of Peiper’s member and wanders over to the office table, apparently to cast an eye over the details of Peiper’s complaint himself. His lips move silently as he reads for a moment before he picks it up and strolls back over and slaps the papers lightly on Peiper’s stomach while shaking his head.
“Now, now, we can see there’s nothing the matter with you. No more of this sort of thing, alright?”
He leaves the papers piled on Peiper’s midriff where the distressed heaving on his body soon sends them drifting to the floor. Taking up the tip of the swab, Whitford twists the slim stick one way and then the other, pushing it up and down at the same time.
One of the guards snorts at the noise Peiper makes at that and the doctor gives him a stern look although he can’t really bring himself to put too much gravitas into it. Whitford pulls the swab free. The cotton at the end is tufted from where the fibres have scraped themselves loose against the sensitive lining inside Peiper’s penis. He repeats the process a few more times, until the entrance to Peiper’s urethra looks rubbed raw, and then packages the swabs up.
“I’m done, doctor,” Sally says.
“Thank you, Sally. I’d like the prints as soon as possible, please.”
As she leaves, Whitford is picking up the scattered papers.
“You know,” he says, tapping a page. “I think they wanted you to comment on the bruising he got around the wrists from where they’d tied him while they- I mean, while they supposedly…”
They both turn to look at Peiper, eyes following the lines of his arms to under the table to where he’s bound for the duration of the examination.
“Well…” Whitford begins.
The doctor yanks the paper from him and stares between it and Peiper with an expression of indignation that only grows to more thunderous proportions when Peiper stares back at him with glassy, uncomprehending eyes as if to purposefully stonewall him.
“So that’s why you’ve been wriggling around on there so much you little worm. Trying to muddy the waters by giving yourself something to show. No, indeed!” his head snaps back to Whitford. “I tell you, you can’t trust these beasts as far as you can throw them.”
He points a finger at one of the guards. “You.”
The man looks startled. “Yes, sir?”
“Did this prisoner have any marks on his wrists before you brought him up here?”
There’s a long pause.
“Nothing different than you’d expect from having the cuffs on and off day to day?” The doctor prompts impatiently.
“Ah right. Uh, no, sir. Nothing different than that.”
The doctor claps his hands together. “Excellent. There we all are then. You can let his legs down now.”
As soon as Peiper begins to relax his feet back down toward the surface of the table, the end of the speculum still cranked wide open and protruding from his body knocks against it with a loud, hollow clang. He groans, clearly desperate to twist his body into some shape no longer designed to expose and hurt and shame him.
“Let me finish up here,” the doctor says to the guards. “Take a break, you can come fetch him in an hour or so.”
Whitford motions to the speculum. “Do you want me to take care of this?”
The doctor shakes his head. “Don’t bother yourself. I’ll deal with it once I’ve finished writing up my notes.”
Inpatient
They led Erich to a metal table with a white sheet on it. It laughed at him, the absolute pristine whiteness of it, clean and cynical like the rubber gloves the doctor wore, when she did it to him. She had brought three guards, all of them wearing their drab uniforms with white gowns over them. Comical had it not also been so daunting.
The humiliation came first, later the pain. The fat one held him by the legs, wrapped his big hands around Erich’s ankles and held him as still as metal would. The big one held his wrists, pressed them down on the table as hard as he could and leaned on his hips. Another one held his head and smiled a crooked smile down at him. There was no need for all this. Erich could not fight even one of them off. Small men made for good pilots. Starvation did the rest. He was at the mercy of brutes.
The doctor had the tube. It was red, with a funnel at one end, and much too thick. They didn’t want to feed him, they wanted to punish him. She would make it fit. It would not go through his nostrils at first but the doctor shoved and pushed until with a ripping sound it slid in and then it was easier, blood lubricating the rest of the way. Erich wanted to scream but that foreign thing slid down his throat, blocking all sound except for his desperate wheezing for air. He could still cry, tears mixing with the blood, which came gushing out of his nose each time the tube penetrated deeper, scratching and ripping.
When it had reached his stomach Erich thought the worst was over. Then the doctor poured the milk down the funnel. His head was already heavy with pain, a dizzying wet hot kind of pain, but the milk was cold and the pain sharp. Burning filled his chest and clutched his racing heart. His vision became blurry, the faces above were swallowed by their own shadows. In the distance there were doors opening and closing, nearly as loud as the sound of the liquid fed down his throat. It sounded like litres going down the tube, much more than his body could fit. Erich started to sweat cold and tremble, from his fingers to his toes. He wasn’t resisting, just suffering and no longer in control of his body, but the men became heavier, the hands tightened around his limbs, he could not move, nor scream. One of them laughed. “Good Russian milk for the little German boy,” said the doctor in heavily accented German and poured more and more of the cold liquid down the funnel.
The procedure lasted only a couple of minutes. When the doctor pulled the tube out of him, she tore Erich’s esophagus further. The milk that he threw up seconds later was mixed with his blood. The men grinned wide. They’d have to do it again. Until he could keep it in. They wouldn’t let their famous prisoner die like a common animal.
Captive
It doesn’t start with a knife. The burning stick comes first. About a foot long, sharply crooked in the middle, the last three inches or so a glowing red ember. The Tommy holds it like a weapon; there’s no mistaking it for a gesture of warmth, of trying to bring the heat of the fire to him after a long cold night in the miserable swamp they’d caged him in. He holds it close enough for the ember’s heat to warm his cheek, and then moves it closer until Max can no longer look at it and the warmth becomes pain.
“I can make you ugly,” he says, his voice thick and low. “So ugly the girls will scream and even your father will not want to look at you.”
Max stares at him, meets his eyes. He does not nod, or flinch or show his fear. Being burned does not seem more horrifying than having a noose around his neck. All of this is more than he can face and so levels of terror become irrelevant.
When he doesn’t move, the soldier puts his stick back in the fire to heat.
“You don’t care if you’re ugly? I don’t believe that. The last pretty German boy let me break his fingers, but when I threatened his face he cried. You don’t know what’s important. Hands, you need to work. To make something of yourself. But you are so soft, you think you need your looks.”
He pulls the stick out of the fire again, bringing it towards Max’s left cheek, then shifts trajectory at the last second and pokes it at his right eye. Max wants to jerk back, to drop to the ground, tighten the noose around his neck and escape them once and for all. He wants to keep still, his eyes on the face of this thug and away from the stick, and somehow he gets his wish. The stick comes closer and the smell of burning hair pricks his nose. He feels the terror flare in his eyes, sees the chuckling British soldiers around him notice, and is relieved that something in them is satisfied by it. They laugh and the man in front of him throws the stick on the fire, where it can’t be retrieved unless he wants to lose the skin on his arm.
Max’s relief is short-lived. The stick is replaced with a knife. A hunting knife with a four or five inch blade, it is designed for close-in work. The man kneels down in front of him, runs the point of the blade down the side of his nose. He grabs Max’s fringe and pulls his head up. “If ugly doesn’t bother you, how about I cut your face right off?”
Max is sure he feels the scrape of metal against the bone of his skull. The blood in his eye feels like hot oil. He flinches then, hard.
‘”No,” he says. Pleads. Using their language. He doesn’t know if it’s the firelight or the wash of blood that makes these men’s teeth gleam red when they grin.
“No. You’re right,” the British soldier says. “It would be a shame to ruin those pretty looks so soon. We have time, I think.”
The man who had been happily carving away at him leaves the circle with a grunt about needing to take a piss and Max realizes he isn’t even sure what rank he holds, who is in charge here? The dark is folding in all around, a lead blanket that confuses all these ugly Anglo faces together. The horizon is lit up with artillery like the dawn – there is still hope isn’t there?
None of the British in this camp seem to be moving. Four English men are watching him from the other side of the fire. He wipes the blood from his eye with his fingers and presses his sleeve to the stinging cut. The seep is warm against his wrist. He is so thirsty that he wonders if there is enough blood for him to drink some.
One of the Englishmen throws a biscuit into the dirt.
“Eat it,” he says.
“Essen…it,” says another and then bursts into laughter.
At the edges of the campfire he watches a man walk past with a long moustache and all the signs of a Field Marshall plastered to him. Their eyes meet for a moment. The gentleman nods to his men and then keeps walking.
“Here.” Max hears the voice at his ear before his face is pushed down into the mud.
–
They give him a tin mug of water and a piece of bread with some sort of paste smeared on it. It tastes like blood and dirt.
The next time they lay out his ration on the ground and piss over it. They don’t make him eat it and he doesn’t.
They shove him into a tent, where the bedding looks like heaven and he collapses on top of it without a struggle.
–
When he wakes someone is pulling his trousers down without undoing them. Five days with little water and less food mean that even the button stays intact.
He concentrates on the feel of the pillow under his face as fingers are dug into his hips, lifting him, and ripping into him with no further warning than that. He doesn’t cry out until a calloused hand pulls his dislocated elbow up behind his back. The nauseous, intense agony of it forces him back into his body; each thrust pushes tears of pain to his eyes, his hands hurt where they grip so tightly into fists.
The British soldier grunts when he comes, hot, heavy breath against Max’s ear as he thrusts his dick into him as far as it will go. He can’t feel it but he knows he’s being bred like a woman. The clammy breath against his ear mirrors the awful stickiness that leaks out between his thighs as the cock inside him withdraws.
–
The next time Max wakes, he’s tied to a tree by his ankle like a stray dog. He hardly has time to wonder why his hands aren’t tied before he sees the man on an ammunition crate stool pointing a rifle at his head from less than five feet away. Suddenly even the ankle-leash seems overkill.
These British boys like to visit his tree. They ask him questions in a language he doesn’t quite understand. After a while, starving, it doesn’t even sound like human language at all.
–
He’s dancing in the dark, eyes fixed on the cold grey horizon, trying not to move too much so he doesn’t rub his wrists raw. Someone pulls him up by his collar, pries his mouth open, and with a rifle-toting guard laughing, pushes his filthy cock past his lips and down his throat.
Max doesn’t mean to bite him. It’s a reflex, like retching.
They cut the rope tying him to the tree and between them they carry him closer to the fire. They lash him on his side, facing the crackling logs so he can’t roll away when they kick him, and so every kick has the threat of immolation as a counterpoint. Unconsciousness feels like death.
When the next Tommy fucks his face with a pistol, he says, “This time if you bite it breaks your teeth.” Every time.
–
The spoon holds something that looks like porridge.
The ropes around his arms and chest that tie him to the stake prevent him from feeding himself, but the English occasionally shove bits of bread in his mouth, pouring water after it, leaving him to figure out how to chew and swallow without choking.
This is not just oats and water, but milk and sugar and salt. The taste of something like real food is something amazing and Max almost cries with the pleasure of it. When he’s offered a second spoonful, he opens his mouth eagerly.
The man feeding him tips the food to the ground and pushes the empty spoon over his tongue and down his throat, holding it there, his face impassive, as Max gags and gasps, then thrashes. The world begins to grey from lack of oxygen.
“You eat like a pig,” he says. “You don’t deserve food.”
Baton
The contrasting black of my baton flatters Peiper’s features, the dark eye sockets and pale lips. I stroke him with it, poke his face, pressing into the hollow under his cheekbone. He looks bored, demonstratively, but I can tell he’s getting so excited already, his eyes scurrying when the tip of the baton grazes his lips. Implication of fellatio. His breathing halts. I apply light pressure to part his lips, a fraction of an inch like a whore does it to attract her customers. Now he stares at me, cold blue, hard steel, judgemental, disgusted. Ironic. I’m not the one getting off on this.
I drop the baton down on his chest. Disappointment flickers over his face. Now now, not so fast, I’ll give you what you need. I draw a vertical line down his torso. No condescending look can hide the tenseness of his body. He once took out a tank by climbing on it and dropping a grenade down the hatch. Hard to believe now, him being so small. Finally I find a warm, soft spot to rest the tip of my baton. There is recollection in his eyes and then expectation on the verge of want.
Remember me now? I gave his balls a good whack some time ago and fondly remember the sound of him panting, muffled by the hood, when he rolled on the floor, cramped up around the pain. Might do it again if he misbehaves. Until they pop. I was a little disappointed he couldn’t keep our little moment to himself, the braggart. Had to tell everyone what a brave soldier he was. But I’ve seen his hands shaking then, I heard his voice breaking.
Did you miss me? Emphasized with a light tap on the soft parts. He jerks forward. The good officer is so eager to earn his wound badge. All the others already have their medals. Black eyes, broken ribs and broken teeth and occasionally strangulation marks and pissed pants. Fine medals. But this prisoner here is too precious to break. Not even that Jewish butcher will touch him. It must be so frustrating, waiting every day for your turn.
The way he looks at me. Defiant doesn’t even come close to describing it. But every challenge is also an invitation. He knows that. Strip. More invitations in the curl of his lips and the red of his cheeks and the discovery that his body looks entirely too boyish for a man of his age. A crescent moon of dirt under my fingernail disappears into the flesh of his chest just below a white, circular scar. His heart it racing. He wishes he didn’t want it so bad. Left unattended it will tear him in two, tragically. I’ll make you feel better.
The baton connects with his face with a meaty thud. Once, twice. A red line pours out from between his lips. Sorry, sir, he fell down the stairs, no, practically threw himself. You know how they are. Another blow to his thigh. He stumbles and falls and cowers from me like an animal, crawling away on his hands and knees. Where are you going? We’re not done here. He’s hyperventilating. Sounds like he’s in heat. His back is bent so that his vertebrae stick out like nails stretching the skin, like they could break through if I made them. One hit on his back drives the air out of his lungs. I count the seconds until he draws breath. Like a drowning man, half a dozen times and increasingly more frantic. When I hit him again, the rhythm breaks, his arms give out, his forehead smacks on the ground. I stop. I mustn’t break him.
With weak arms he raises himself on all fours again and coughs, blood dripping from his mouth, speckling the concrete floor under him. He looks at it and laughs and then turns to look up at me. He’s smiling wide, euphoric. His teeth are pink with blood, his eyes wet with tears. Didn’t think the sourpuss could be that happy. Suddenly my urge to hurt him wanes. I feel drained like after a good fuck. Lazily I kick him in the balls. He moans. I realize he does that just for me. Sickening. “Thank you,” he says when I leave.
Tauschhandel
You are reading at your desk when he opens the cell door. You know him, he is a frequent visitor. He steps inside and locks the door behind him. The old game. He pulls a letter from the inside pocket of his jacket. Crayon flowers adorn the envelope.
“Look what I have for you, a letter from…”
He pronounces her name like a brand of cereal.
You carefully close the book you were reading and put in a bookmark on page 48. You stand up and reflexively move your hands to straighten out your pants and pull down your tunic. You walk over to your visitor and kneel in front of him. You stare at up him, patiently waiting for the ritual to commence.
“You’re a good boy, “ he says and pats you on the head. He is ten years younger than you.
He waves the letter back and forth like a treat.
“What does the American dog say?” he asks.
“Woof,” you say.
“What does the German dog say?”
“Wau.”
“What does the Nazi dog say?”
“Please.”
He clicks his tongue and shakes his head.
“No, no. That’s not right. That’s not what it sounds like at all. More passion!”
“Please,” you say dragging out the vocals, letting them vibrate in the back of your throat.
“Oh, that’s nice,” he says and fans himself with the envelope.
He drops one hand in front of your face. It smells like piss. You wonder if they do that on purpose or if they actually are this filthy. You lap at his hand.
“Good boy,” he says. Unimaginative.
He opens his pants. He’s hard. You don’t want to look at it, but you always do. He presses the tip of his dick on your lips. He reeks like arousal and more piss.
“So what does the Nazi dog say?” he asks and cocks his head.
“Please,” you say and your lips drag over the wet glans.
“Please what?”
“Please let me suck your cock.”
Funny, you realize you have never said words like these in German. What an awful language they speak.
He jabs his dick into your mouth. The taste is vile. You suck him off.
“You’re getting good at this,” he says.
He’s right, you are. They aren’t content with just fucking your mouth anymore. You have to put in the effort and service them. It’s a little more humiliating and little less painful. He comes so quickly. They are all children. You swallow his semen. You’re not allowed to spit it out. You used to do that once they were gone, put a finger down your throat to get the dirty seed out of your belly and burn their taste off your teeth. But then you got very skinny and you thought of the people who needed you and now you swallow and smile when they slap your face, and when they ask if you liked the taste you nod and say “Ja” with that funny intonation that they like so much.
He wipes his cock on your face and drops the letter at your feet. He turns to leave, but then he stops, reaches into the pocket of his pants and pulls out a piece of candy wrapped in red and gold. He drops it in front of you. You pick it up and say “thank you”. When he’s gone you add the small nugget to the collection under your pillow. You’re so happy. Eight pieces in all the colors of the rainbow, eight pieces for the eighth birthday of your little son. It’s not much but it’s all you can give him.
Hours
Kurt Meyer is not impressed with Canadian prisons.
The worst thing about prison is that it’s so damn boring. Everything is well organized, clean and safe. The walls are white. The bars are smooth. There are no laces on my shoes. I eat my food with plastic spoons. When they want me to see the sun they walk me like a dog on a leash. I don’t understand how they think they can fix me this way. It’s hardly a punishment. Mopping the floor, dusting books and cleaning toilets isn’t even half as effective as being strapped to a post and beaten to unconsciousness.
I spend hours laying on my bunk with my arms crossed behind my back humming to myself, thinking these funny little things. The problem with being left alone with your thoughts is that once you have thought them, you think of something else and whatever you were thinking about before just disappears and with nothing new ever happening you end up thinking the same thoughts over and over again like the hands on a clock going round and round.
At 1 o’clock there is Sepp’s birthday party, jugs of foaming beer, sweet schnapps and plates overflowing with pork and potatoes.
At 3 o’clock I slip and fall off that damn roof and break my legs into two dozen pieces and the pain is so damn bad I can feel it to this day – every morning when I wake up and I just want to drag myself over to the toilet and throw up.
At 4 o’clock the tanks come rolling in with a deep rumbling in my stomach. In the distance the artillery plays us the last concert and planes fly like the flocks of crows when it turns night.
At 8 o’clock I remember what the Americans told me about the camps. I imagine a naked little thing torn to pieces by a pack of dogs as the black-clad guards watch laughing. The dogs come running back to their masters, tails wagging and snouts full of blood. A tongue darts out between the reddened teeth and licks its master’s hand. Good boys.
At 9 o’clock it’s piles of corpses with their hands still held high over their heads.
At 10 o’clock it’s the crackling of burning straw.
At 11 o’clock it’s me and Max in a filthy kitchen with a woman of no good stock between us. She says something and I only understand the familiar “nemec, nemec“. She smiles and pushes Max away from her and then she’s on the table and she doesn’t smile anymore. Somewhere in the corner a cat cries, or a child. She doesn’t even wear anything under her skirt. The smell of her cunt is so strong I would eat her out if she wasn’t such a stubborn thing. I tell Max to fuck her. He looks like he doesn’t want to, but with my hand around his dick and a few quick strokes he’s hard and willing enough. She doesn’t even fight back when he thrusts into her. They are used to this sort of thing here. I watch his dick go in and out of her. Flesh rubbing on flesh, clinging together in a twitching embrace.
At 12 o’clock the come is leaking out of her onto the wooden table, dripping on the dirt floor below like spilled milk and I laugh and say to Max we should find her kid to lick it up. That smile. Max always knows what I want. He sits down between the legs dangling off the table, opens his mouth wide like at the doctor’s and stretches out his tongue. A single, milky drop falls onto it. He swallows the bitter pill and looks at me for approval. I’m so happy, I must look like a little child. “More,” I say quietly. He hates it. That vile taste. But he laps it all up, mine and his come, the thick mix that’s oozing from her cunt like pus. He sucks it off her folds and swallows it down coughing.
It’s 1 o’clock again at Sepp’s party. I wink at Max, stretch out my tongue and dip it into the foam of his beer. It just keeps going round and round.
Correspondence II
Letter from Joachim Peiper to Hedwig Potthast, Himmler’s mistress and good friend of Sigurd and Joachim Peiper. Dated January 21, 1947. We recommend you first read this letter referencing the same events.
Dear Häschen,
If everything went as planned you will be very surprised about this letter reaching you from my dismal cell not by post but a good friend’s hands. Do not worry, I don’t intend to make you accomplice in some nefarious plan, I would not dare put you in danger. I merely wanted to write you without every word being roughly examined by an American warden.
My poor Häschen, I hope you are as well as you can be given the circumstances. Your loss is so great, yet you must mourn in secret. I wish from the bottom of my heart that I could be there for you now and make these unbearable times just a little more bearable for you. With the noose still swinging above my head, it pains me most to think that soon my dear Sigi will be left alone with the children in this hostile world. At least the two of you still have each other. Please promise to me, when I’m no more, you will look out for her as she looks out for you.
When I think of you and her it feels inappropriate to complain about my own situation, but there is some great weight on my mind and forgive me, good Schwesterlein, I need to burden you with it or I will break under it. Hopefully you can lick my wounds. My situation here in this prison cell, that cages my mind just like my soul, makes it impossible for me to do so on my own, I always end up tearing the wound open again worse than before.
I should burden Sigi instead of you with this, but I am frankly too ashamed. As long as the faintest possibility remains that she will hold me in her arms again I can’t bring myself to confess my plight to her. I fear she would forever reject me as a thing too sullied to touch. I know I do her injustice with this thought. My mind wanders just to plunge me into deeper worries. Here I am left all alone to destroy myself. Stone becomes reflective surfaces throwing images at me that I wish to forget.
About a year ago four guards visited me in my cell to entertain themselves with me. I wish I could spare you the details of their torture, they are hard to read and even harder to write. But if I omit them completely you won’t understand my struggle.
I have told you before about the prison guards in terms more suited for the public. These men seem to have been recruited from the ranks of the worst criminals freed by the Americans. Not Russians of course, but not any better in nature. How lucky you are to have never seen this kind of man, which springs so frequently from Slavic soil. Men like beasts, slaves to their urges. They do not like me, like they don’t like anything German.
They came to me under the pretense of interrogation. Once they had subdued me they kicked and beat me with a belt. The buckle ripped my back open. In total intensity the pain could not compare to a bullet wound, but it was a more prolonged, methodical ordeal, designed to break my will. I want to believe they did not break it, but I can’t honestly say so, I only remember the soothing embrace of unconsciousness and then coming to my senses as they were fighting over my me like dogs over a piece of meat, pulling my limbs, each eager to have me next. They needed not to fight. They all got their turn. The rape of my body was humiliating but worse was it to have my own flesh succumb and surrender and betray me. I could not help but feel some semblance of sexual pleasure that I could not blame on anatomy alone. It felt like my inner most secrets had been laid bare to their ridicule. You know this streak in my character, that urges me always to push myself onto an open blade rather than evade it. But to submit to those least deserving of it. I can hardly remember our time together, Sigi and you and me, and how good you were to me without a numb pain. When I put my name under a document begging for my life there is this searing thought, that I should not, that I should await my end rather than go on as this pathetic half being which must always lie to others and itself. But then I think about a future for Sigi, the children and also about you and I pull myself together.
With increased distance in time memories become sharper again. I think about the back of your hand. Don’t be angry with me. I remain always
Your Brüderlein,
Jochen
Spandau Ballet 1
Always with the solemn faces. The more you punch the Germans, the less they speak. And the looks they shoot you when they think you’re not looking. You’d think they won the war.
The only time I hear them talk freely is in the prison yard, when they think no one is listening. And then all they ever do is complain. If you asked me what the quintessential German characteristic was, my reply wouldn’t be discipline or barbarism, it’s moaning. They are never happy with anything and will come together like a couple of bored house wives, lamenting flaws in everything from the quality of food to the little amount of beating they received. To point out the shortcomings of reality itself was their preferred form of socializing, much like monkeys picking lice or cats licking each other’s fur. Kant, Schopenhauer, Marx and Nietzsche could only be the product of a nation of chronic complainers. Well, if history had told us one thing, it was better they just complained than made improvements of their own.
One time we found the inmates of cell complex A trying to communicate with cell complex B, which housed the officers, by scratching letters on the bottom of their mess kits. As punishment we put them all on bread and water for a week. I couldn’t believe my ears when afterwards I heard them moan not about the poor accommodation but the fact that we hadn’t done anything worse to them. To put it bluntly they thought we were wimps.
Maybe giving some of them a good whipping in the prison yard would have catered to their interests. They did like to publicly display the things us civilized nations did only behind closed doors. To them violence wasn’t something to be hidden but to be embraced and publicized. To fulfil that base desire they discretely showed each other their marks and bruises. Sleeves rolled up a little too high, so the blue badges of honour would peak out – enough to estimate the size of it, but not enough to seem desperate. One could of course not hold the head as high as they were accustomed to while also begging for attention. It was an almost neurotic habit, like a beaten wife, who covers up her black eye with make-up just enough to hide the vulgar ugliness of it and give the impression that she is indeed trying to hide it, but not enough to cover it so well that no one would take notice and pity her.
When I first got to interrogate them the were all black and blue around the edges, giving them more to show and less to complain about. Evidently their captors and guards enjoyed using them as punching bags, something I had to put an end to immediately. Not so much out of humanitarian reasons but to prevent an inconvenient hardening. I needed them susceptible to physical abuse and this sort of selfish random beating meant I would immediately have to resort to more severe means of torture if the need arose.
~
The chief prosecutor and I sit in a brightly lit office room with concrete walls and bars in front of the window. He kissed my hand with a smile that made my skin crawl. A disgustingly false personality is a professional necessity. He tells me all about the inmates, their history and command structure. For each of them he pulls out a single piece of paper with his name, signature, rank, company, the war crimes he was accused of and a mug shot pinned to it. Half an hour later 51 of these papers are spread out on his desk like a Nazi murder mystery game. 51 faces, young and old, mostly handsome, a variety of types too, mercenaries from all over Europe. The higher up you get in the chain of command, the more likely you could find a smirk instead of the proper military neutrality. I take note of a few ones looking distraught with eyes wide and chin clenched.
My first subject for interrogation had been neither distraught nor cocky. Frederick Berger is standing in the doorway of the interrogation cell with a black hood on his head and his hands tied behind his back. He is wearing a black Panzer wrap, the SS kind, with all the insignia ripped off. Maybe some lucky GI now uses them as props for his stories about how he killed those Nazi fucks. His pants are of a civilian type, grey, and tugged into a pair of American issue boots. I motion the guards to remove my prisoner’s hood and untie his hands. Another motion towards the door and they leave us alone.
Frederick is a good looking young man. He has high cheekbones, a strong jaw and thin lips. His hair is dirty blond or as the Germans say: straßenköterblond – street dog blond. I estimate him to be about 180cm tall, a little taller when he assumes the military posture. That is: head high and arm at his side, bend at the elbow, fingers together, thumb to the index finger with a slight curve to the hand like he’s begging for orders. That’s how they teach it to the SS boys and you can always tell an SS boy from any other soldier because he just can’t help but stand like that. And Frederick stands just like that, such a good SS boy, silently staring forward into nothing. I tell him to sit down. He glimpses at me surprised to find a woman in the interrogation seat and one speaking German too. I smile wide, teeth showing maybe a little too much, I never did get the hang of it.
“Your name is Frederick Berger, you’re 21 years old, the last rank you held was Sturmmann. Is that correct?”, I ask matter-of-factly.
“Jawohl.” Pleasant voice, not too confident despite the choice of military jargon.
I look up from my paper to muster him. He stares at me with unconcealed curiosity. These people have no subtlety. It is always all or nothing with them.
“I’m Edda Wolff and from now on I will be questioning you about the war crimes you committed.”
I have now thoroughly destroyed his curiosity. He does what they always do: shuts his mouth and stares ahead in demonstrative disinterest. Back to nothing. In this state I could ask him for hours and get nowhere. Of course I could slap him across the face and call him a dirty German pig, but from my experience that would hardly make him open up. Instead I opt for the friendly route, which comes with a sweet smile (no teeth) and hint of Bavarian accent. Germans can’t help but like people from the south. Not that unlike Americans I suppose.
“You were a Ladeschütze, right?”
His surprise confirms it. Well it’s not too hard to spot the Ladeschütze out of a crew of five. He’s the one with the thick arms and torso and the rough blistered fingers. The commander is equally easy to identify. Usually he is the oldest, sometimes as much as twice the age of the others. A proud father of four young lads. I never thought much about why it was that way. It wasn’t like the tank commander had an actual position of authority over the others. Did that perhaps mean that these old veteran commanders had climbed some burning tanks before, leaving their crew to die a horrible death? I shuddered to think about it. What a lucky boy this Ladeschütze was then, finding himself in my hands, not burned to a crisp in a metal box.
“Who do you share your cell with?”, I proceeded with my usual questioning.
He runs down four names and I carefully write them down. I didn’t know they cramped so many of them in one cell. I’ve seen one of those from the inside. They are tiny. Not to mention there is only one bed which is barely big enough for one adult man. Ah, how adorable.
“Four… Is that your crew?”
He shakes his head. Just his commander and three from a different battalion. Well, he got his commander with him at least, what a lucky boy.
“Are you happy to be with your commander?”
Some hesitation. He is questioning my motives.
“Yes.”
“Was he a good commander?”
“Jawohl.”, he says proudly. There is glimmer in his eyes and he can barely hide a smile. He must admire his commander so much. Oh, how could he not? To be encased in this steel plated coffin with no other purpose but loading shells, like a human machine. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t see, he couldn’t fight, he had absolutely no autonomy, just his commander’s guiding voice. What a wonderful tightly knit group such a crew must have been. Five men merged into one terrible war machine. But now he has been peeled out of his tank and ripped from his comrades. Just a boy with a neat haircut and the torn up remains of a uniform of a country that is no more.
“Do you like him?”, I ask with a warm smile.
He hesitates again, not because he is searching his feelings but because he doesn’t understand my questioning. His last interrogator must have been such a bore. How could you not savour these men?
“It’s a simple question. Do you like your commander?”
“Yes.” His feeble voice doesn’t fit his hard jawline.
“Does he like you too?”
“Yes.” Eyes down and up again in the flicker of less than a second. I wish he had put his hands on the table, so I could see them clench.
“Are you two in a sexual relationship?”
I have never see a man flush that red that quickly. He’s not just embarrassed but personally offended. “No. Please stop that.”, he almost shouts, stumbling over his own words. I take it that the commander is more of a father figure then and Frederick only sometimes touches himself while fantasizing about him. What’s the German saying? “Was nicht ist, kann ja noch werden.” What isn’t yet may well still be. He mutters something under his breath. That’s just rude no matter how bothered he is by my implication.
“Would you rather have me ask about your involvement in the hanging of the French civilians?”
That shuts him up. He’s still red and very agitated, but appears to be struggling with himself now rather than me.
“Good. Now is there anything you need?” He doesn’t understand. Of course he doesn’t, no one cares for his needs now. I elaborate: “Goods, something the Americans forgot” – air quotes – “to give you. The necessities.”
“We only have one blanket. And it’s cold at night.”
Oh no, the poor men don’t have enough blankets. I think about them clinging together for warmth, piled up on a bed barely big enough for one of them. It requires a lot of strength not to bug Frederick about it. I think if I did he would go back to pouting again and that would be a shame. He looks adorable now with the red still visible around his ears and his eyes flickering left and right, looking for a trap or an escape. I want to touch his pretty little face.
“You can have a second blanket if you let me do this.”, I explain and without further hesitation reach out. His eyes follow my finger tips. He’s completely frozen. Just a little closer. I’m stretched out over the table, the edge is cutting into my hips. Just a couple inches more. I break through some personal barrier and he flinches away like a wild animal.
“I won’t hurt you. Just a little something for me.”, I purr. I won’t mention his reward. He’s not stupid. When I reach out again he doesn’t flinch. The skin of his cheek feels harder than his age suggests, it’s clean shaven though just like the back of his neck.
If you really want to rile up the Germans, you refuse them access to razor blades. You could take their food, their water, their clothing and dignity and they’d just take it like it was nothing but you take their razor blades, or worse shave off all of the beautiful hair on their heads, and they will hate you with the force of a thousand year Reich. I do however like them looking neat myself, too much to ever inflict such shame on them.
I give Frederick some time to adjust to the sensation of my fingers on his skin, but it’s no use. He’s shaking in his boots. I hear them dragging on the floor. I’m too greedy to wait. I trace the hollow of his cheek, the narrow nose bridge. “If you allow me to do this we can skip the serious talk.” No answer is agreement enough for me. I follow the sharp line of his cheekbone to his ear where the stubble of his shaved hair begins. I tap along the lobe of his ear and then stroke him behind it, enjoying the feeling of freshly trimmed stubble. All the while he tries not to look at me, but I’m too close now to avoid. We make eye contact. “It’s okay”, I whisper, “I’ll take good care of you.” And then the most wonderful thing happens: he leans into my touch. It’s just a small, subtle movement but unmistakably he’s trying to get closer to me. I can barely hide my joy. Slowly I caress the back of his head. His boots are still shaking under the table but he is leaning into my hand like a cat rubbing its head on its master’s hand. So desperate for affection, he can’t even resists his captor, poor little thing.
He quickly becomes my whore. Over the following weeks I pay him in blankets, chocolate, and cigarettes. In exchange he lets me touch him. I know he craves my touch but the exchange of goods serves to make it impersonal.
One time I have him undress and I study every inch of his body. I make a mental map of his scars. So many burns. He’s cold and embarrassed.
I kiss him on the temples and ask about his childhood. We dropped a bomb on his sweetheart. Poor little SS boy. He cries and winces when I kiss him.
He is so pliable. He has no will of his own, but will put his heart into doing as he is told. Germans make for a good pets.
He is sitting between my legs. His face is buried in my lap. His nose is buried in my panties. Hands behind your back, no fingers allowed. Obedience secures his hands more tightly behind his back than any rope. And he tries so hard. Pulling and tearing at the fabric that’s between his tongue and my cunt. You can do it. Good boy. How eagerly he laps me up.
He bends me over the table and fucks me as I taught him, slow and deep. I love the way his thick arms squeeze my abdomen when he reaches around my body. I’m dripping wet. His fingers search and prod and slip in the mess he has made. Finally he crushes my clit under the flat of his thumb until I can’t feel anything but his cock buried inside of me and the feeling rolls over my body and into my head and I come slow and deep.
He doesn’t even get himself off. He just sits back down, ready to proceed with the farce of an interrogation. It’s a pathetic sight, that cock poking out of his pants, so wet and pink. This time I can’t help myself and jerk him off. It takes just a few strokes to push him over the edge. He looks so pretty when he comes. His eyes are pressed shut as if in pain and his whole body twitches with each spurt. The come gets all over his nice little jacket.
I think about him returning to his cell, his uniform stained and stinking like pussy and semen. They must know by now. How else would he be earning all of these nice things to share with them? The thought occurs to me that maybe he tells them he is seducing me. That he got into the head of the the ditzy American secretary, who couldn’t resist his Germanic charms. It doesn’t sit well with me.
Spandau Ballet
Always with the solemn faces. The more you punch the Germans, the less they speak. And the looks they shoot you when they think you’re not looking. You’d think they won the war.
The only time I hear them talk freely is in the prison yard, when they think no one is listening. And then all they ever do is complain. If you asked me what the quintessential German characteristic was, my reply wouldn’t be discipline or barbarism, it’s moaning. They are never happy with anything and will come together like a couple of bored house wives, lamenting flaws in everything from the quality of food to the little amount of beating they received. To point out the shortcomings of reality itself was their preferred form of socializing, much like monkeys picking lice or cats licking each other’s fur. Kant, Schopenhauer, Marx and Nietzsche could only be the product of a nation of chronic complainers. Well, if history had told us one thing, it was better they just complained than made improvements of their own.
One time we found the inmates of cell complex A trying to communicate with cell complex B, which housed the officers, by scratching letters on the bottom of their mess kits. As punishment we put them all on bread and water for a week. I couldn’t believe my ears when afterwards I heard them moan not about the poor accommodation but the fact that we hadn’t done anything worse to them. To put it bluntly they thought we were wimps.
Maybe giving some of them a good whipping in the prison yard would have catered to their interests. They did like to publicly display the things us civilized nations did only behind closed doors. To them violence wasn’t something to be hidden but to be embraced and publicized. To fulfil that base desire they discretely showed each other their marks and bruises. Sleeves rolled up a little too high, so the blue badges of honour would peak out – enough to estimate the size of it, but not enough to seem desperate. One could of course not hold the head as high as they were accustomed to while also begging for attention. It was an almost neurotic habit, like a beaten wife, who covers up her black eye with make-up just enough to hide the vulgar ugliness of it and give the impression that she is indeed trying to hide it, but not enough to cover it so well that no one would take notice and pity her.
When I first got to interrogate them the were all black and blue around the edges, giving them more to show and less to complain about. Evidently their captors and guards enjoyed using them as punching bags, something I had to put an end to immediately. Not so much out of humanitarian reasons but to prevent an inconvenient hardening. I needed them susceptible to physical abuse and this sort of selfish random beating meant I would immediately have to resort to more severe means of torture if the need arose.
~
The chief prosecutor and I sit in a brightly lit office room with concrete walls and bars in front of the window. He kissed my hand with a smile that made my skin crawl. A disgustingly false personality is a professional necessity. He tells me all about the inmates, their history and command structure. For each of them he pulls out a single piece of paper with his name, signature, rank, company, the war crimes he was accused of and a mug shot pinned to it. Half an hour later 51 of these papers are spread out on his desk like a Nazi murder mystery game. 51 faces, young and old, mostly handsome, a variety of types too, mercenaries from all over Europe. The higher up you get in the chain of command, the more likely you could find a smirk instead of the proper military neutrality. I take note of a few ones looking distraught with eyes wide and chin clenched.
My first subject for interrogation had been neither distraught nor cocky. Frederick Berger is standing in the doorway of the interrogation cell with a black hood on his head and his hands tied behind his back. He is wearing a black Panzer wrap, the SS kind, with all the insignia ripped off. Maybe some lucky GI now uses them as props for his stories about how he killed those Nazi fucks. His pants are of a civilian type, grey, and tugged into a pair of American issue boots. I motion the guards to remove my prisoner’s hood and untie his hands. Another motion towards the door and they leave us alone.
Frederick is a good looking young man. He has high cheekbones, a strong jaw and thin lips. His hair is dirty blond or as the Germans say: straßenköterblond – street dog blond. I estimate him to be about 180cm tall, a little taller when he assumes the military posture. That is: head high and arm at his side, bend at the elbow, fingers together, thumb to the index finger with a slight curve to the hand like he’s begging for orders. That’s how they teach it to the SS boys and you can always tell an SS boy from any other soldier because he just can’t help but stand like that. And Frederick stands just like that, such a good SS boy, silently staring forward into nothing. I tell him to sit down. He glimpses at me surprised to find a woman in the interrogation seat and one speaking German too. I smile wide, teeth showing maybe a little too much, I never did get the hang of it.
“Your name is Frederick Berger, you’re 21 years old, the last rank you held was Sturmmann. Is that correct?”, I ask matter-of-factly.
“Jawohl.” Pleasant voice, not too confident despite the choice of military jargon.
I look up from my paper to muster him. He stares at me with unconcealed curiosity. These people have no subtlety. It is always all or nothing with them.
“I’m Edda Wolff and from now on I will be questioning you about the war crimes you committed.”
I have now thoroughly destroyed his curiosity. He does what they always do: shuts his mouth and stares ahead in demonstrative disinterest. Back to nothing. In this state I could ask him for hours and get nowhere. Of course I could slap him across the face and call him a dirty German pig, but from my experience that would hardly make him open up. Instead I opt for the friendly route, which comes with a sweet smile (no teeth) and hint of Bavarian accent. Germans can’t help but like people from the south. Not that unlike Americans I suppose.
“You were a Ladeschütze, right?”
His surprise confirms it. Well it’s not too hard to spot the Ladeschütze out of a crew of five. He’s the one with the thick arms and torso and the rough blistered fingers. The commander is equally easy to identify. Usually he is the oldest, sometimes as much as twice the age of the others. A proud father of four young lads. I never thought much about why it was that way. It wasn’t like the tank commander had an actual position of authority over the others. Did that perhaps mean that these old veteran commanders had climbed some burning tanks before, leaving their crew to die a horrible death? I shuddered to think about it. What a lucky boy this Ladeschütze was then, finding himself in my hands, not burned to a crisp in a metal box.
“Who do you share your cell with?”, I proceeded with my usual questioning.
He runs down four names and I carefully write them down. I didn’t know they cramped so many of them in one cell. I’ve seen one of those from the inside. They are tiny. Not to mention there is only one bed which is barely big enough for one adult man. Ah, how adorable.
“Four… Is that your crew?”
He shakes his head. Just his commander and three from a different battalion. Well, he got his commander with him at least, what a lucky boy.
“Are you happy to be with your commander?”
Some hesitation. He is questioning my motives.
“Yes.”
“Was he a good commander?”
“Jawohl.”, he says proudly. There is glimmer in his eyes and he can barely hide a smile. He must admire his commander so much. Oh, how could he not? To be encased in this steel plated coffin with no other purpose but loading shells, like a human machine. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t see, he couldn’t fight, he had absolutely no autonomy, just his commander’s guiding voice. What a wonderful tightly knit group such a crew must have been. Five men merged into one terrible war machine. But now he has been peeled out of his tank and ripped from his comrades. Just a boy with a neat haircut and the torn up remains of a uniform of a country that is no more.
“Do you like him?”, I ask with a warm smile.
He hesitates again, not because he is searching his feelings but because he doesn’t understand my questioning. His last interrogator must have been such a bore. How could you not savour these men?
“It’s a simple question. Do you like your commander?”
“Yes.” His feeble voice doesn’t fit his hard jawline.
“Does he like you too?”
“Yes.” Eyes down and up again in the flicker of less than a second. I wish he had put his hands on the table, so I could see them clench.
“Are you two in a sexual relationship?”
I have never see a man flush that red that quickly. He’s not just embarrassed but personally offended. “No. Please stop that.”, he almost shouts, stumbling over his own words. I take it that the commander is more of a father figure then and Frederick only sometimes touches himself while fantasizing about him. What’s the German saying? “Was nicht ist, kann ja noch werden.” What isn’t yet may well still be. He mutters something under his breath. That’s just rude no matter how bothered he is by my implication.
“Would you rather have me ask about your involvement in the hanging of the French civilians?”
That shuts him up. He’s still red and very agitated, but appears to be struggling with himself now rather than me.
“Good. Now is there anything you need?” He doesn’t understand. Of course he doesn’t, no one cares for his needs now. I elaborate: “Goods, something the Americans forgot” – air quotes – “to give you. The necessities.”
“We only have one blanket. And it’s cold at night.”
Oh no, the poor men don’t have enough blankets. I think about them clinging together for warmth, piled up on a bed barely big enough for one of them. It requires a lot of strength not to bug Frederick about it. I think if I did he would go back to pouting again and that would be a shame. He looks adorable now with the red still visible around his ears and his eyes flickering left and right, looking for a trap or an escape. I want to touch his pretty little face.
“You can have a second blanket if you let me do this.”, I explain and without further hesitation reach out. His eyes follow my finger tips. He’s completely frozen. Just a little closer. I’m stretched out over the table, the edge is cutting into my hips. Just a couple inches more. I break through some personal barrier and he flinches away like a wild animal.
“I won’t hurt you. Just a little something for me.”, I purr. I won’t mention his reward. He’s not stupid. When I reach out again he doesn’t flinch. The skin of his cheek feels harder than his age suggests, it’s clean shaven though just like the back of his neck.
If you really want to rile up the Germans, you refuse them access to razor blades. You could take their food, their water, their clothing and dignity and they’d just take it like it was nothing but you take their razor blades, or worse shave off all of the beautiful hair on their heads, and they will hate you with the force of a thousand year Reich. I do however like them looking neat myself, too much to ever inflict such shame on them.
I give Frederick some time to adjust to the sensation of my fingers on his skin, but it’s no use. He’s shaking in his boots. I hear them dragging on the floor. I’m too greedy to wait. I trace the hollow of his cheek, the narrow nose bridge. “If you allow me to do this we can skip the serious talk.” No answer is agreement enough for me. I follow the sharp line of his cheekbone to his ear where the stubble of his shaved hair begins. I tap along the lobe of his ear and then stroke him behind it, enjoying the feeling of freshly trimmed stubble. All the while he tries not to look at me, but I’m too close now to avoid. We make eye contact. “It’s okay”, I whisper, “I’ll take good care of you.” And then the most wonderful thing happens: he leans into my touch. It’s just a small, subtle movement but unmistakably he’s trying to get closer to me. I can barely hide my joy. Slowly I caress the back of his head. His boots are still shaking under the table but he is leaning into my hand like a cat rubbing its head on its master’s hand. So desperate for affection, he can’t even resists his captor, poor little thing.
He quickly becomes my whore. Over the following weeks I pay him in blankets, chocolate, and cigarettes. In exchange he lets me touch him. I know he craves my touch but the exchange of goods serves to make it impersonal.
One time I have him undress and I study every inch of his body. I make a mental map of his scars. So many burns. He’s cold and embarrassed.
I kiss him on the temples and ask about his childhood. We dropped a bomb on his sweetheart. Poor little SS boy. He cries and winces when I kiss him.
He is so pliable. He has no will of his own, but will put his heart into doing as he is told. Germans make for a good pets.
He is sitting between my legs. His face is buried in my lap. His nose is buried in my panties. Hands behind your back, no fingers allowed. Obedience secures his hands more tightly behind his back than any rope. And he tries so hard. Pulling and tearing at the fabric that’s between his tongue and my cunt. You can do it. Good boy. How eagerly he laps me up.
He bends me over the table and fucks me as I taught him, slow and deep. I love the way his thick arms squeeze my abdomen when he reaches around my body. I’m dripping wet. His fingers search and prod and slip in the mess he has made. Finally he crushes my clit under the flat of his thumb until I can’t feel anything but his cock buried inside of me and the feeling rolls over my body and into my head and I come slow and deep.
He doesn’t even get himself off. He just sits back down, ready to proceed with the farce of an interrogation. It’s a pathetic sight, that cock poking out of his pants, so wet and pink. This time I can’t help myself and jerk him off. It takes just a few strokes to push him over the edge. He looks so pretty when he comes. His eyes are pressed shut as if in pain and his whole body twitches with each spurt. The come gets all over his nice little jacket.
I think about him returning to his cell, his uniform stained and stinking like pussy and semen. They must know by now. How else would he be earning all of these nice things to share with them? The thought occurs to me that maybe he tells them he is seducing me. That he got into the head of the the ditzy American secretary, who couldn’t resist his Germanic charms. It doesn’t sit well with me.
Bunker Archives 